Previously on Network, there was an unplanned party at Holly’s apartment. Nobody got wasted, but Charlie still has tricks up her sleeve in creating hijinks. In this episode of Network, it’s the day the critics will meet outside of headquarters.

Leah: Today is the big day.

Jesse: You said it.

Leah: Got your reports?

Jesse: I do. In my office.

Leah and Jesse head to his office.

CUT TO:

INT. JESSE’S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS

Jesse and Leah enter the office. To her surprise, the office space is clean.

Leah: Wow.

Jesse: Wow is right.

Leah: I’ve never seen your office this clean before!

Jesse: I did some organizing and re-arranging over the past week since we ordered a limited series to series.

Leah: Yeah, a series no one expected or wanted.

Jesse: Remember Psych Med, Leah? That was not my idea.

Leah: One that ended up in your reports that you found. Earlier in the season, you lost most of the reports to the pilots.

Jesse: I did. But it won’t happen again. I have discovered the magical power of flash drives.

Leah (puzzled): Flash drives?

Jesse: Flash drives. You plug one into your computer and you save files on there.

Leah: Care to demonstrate?

Jesse: Sure.

Jesse then plugs a flash drive into his computer hard drive and then it opens up on his computer.

Jesse: You simply open the flash drive file on your computer and then whala, you get lots of files to look at.

Leah: Welcome to the technological age, Jesse.

Jesse: Well, I am still working on how this works.

All of a sudden, Kasey comes into the office.

Kasey: Hey guys! We need to be in the green room in fifteen minutes with all the talking points.

Jesse: Will do. I’ll get them from my flash drive.

Kasey: I’ve never heard of you working with flash drives, Jesse. But I’m glad you took my advice and got your stuff organized.

Jesse: Better than having a mess around the office. Ash wants me to be a little more organized.

Leah: The office looks way better now than it ever has!

Kasey: Agreed. Now can we just hurry over to the green room?

Jesse (grabs flash drive): Got it!

Jesse, Kasey, and Leah exit the scene.

CUT TO:

INT. GREEN ROOM - CONTINUOUS

Ash is panicking while preparing for the big day.

Ash: Where are my talking points? This is going to be a disaster waiting to happen.

Jesse, Kasey, and Leah show up.

Jesse: Right here!

Ash: Where are they?

Jesse: My flash drive!

Ash: Since when do you even have a flash drive?

Jesse: Just let me plug it into the computer.

Jesse finds Ash’s laptop and plugs in the flash drive. He then opens up the file entitled “Talking Points” under the critics folder. Ash then reads over them.

Ash: Good work, Jesse. Now, if we can get them printed before my cue, that would be great.

Leah: There’s a printer in this room.

Leah then prints off the file. She then gets the file from the printer and hands it over to Ash.

Ash: This is record timing for you guys.

He looks at his watch.

Ash: That’s my cue. I gotta talk to these critics.

He then kisses Leah on the cheek, and high fives Jesse and Kasey and leaves the scene.

Leah: That’s my man.

Kasey: You said it. Well done, Jesse. All the tasks are done in record time since you got the flash drive.

Jesse: Glad you thought of this, honey. I would have never thought of it.

CUT TO:

INT. PODIUM - FIVE MINUTES LATER

Ash is giving a speech to all the critics.

Ash: Well, as you all know, we canceled Psych Med and pulled it from the schedule a few months ago. We were very disappointed with its ratings when it premiered. But one thing is for sure, the loyal fans of Psych Med deserve a conclusion and I know the writers will deliver it.

Critic #1: Do you have anything to comment on The President’s Daughter, Mr. Chambers?

Ash: Yes. I’m very pleased with The President’s Daughter’s performance this season.

CUT TO:

INT. GREEN ROOM - CONTINUOUS

Kasey: Based on the Twitter trends, we are killing it!

Leah: Finally. After a rough year. Thanks to Jesse for saving the day.

Charlie enters.

Charlie: Not so fast.

Kasey: What the hell are you doing here, Charlie?

Charlie: Controversy is ensuing during production of one certain show. Did you know that one of Psych Med’s producers is accused of sexual harassment?

Leah: Too late for that. We’ve already canceled it.

News ensues that Psych Med is in even more trouble than usual. All will be revealed in the season finale of Network!

FADE OUT

NETWORK is written and executive produced by Jessica Boggs and production is overseen by TVRG Originals.

NETWORK is one of The TV Ratings Guide's first ORIGINAL SERIES, an exclusive feature of The TV Ratings Guide.

Did you forget that Christy has a daughter named Violet? For a while it seemed like the show might have, but it turns out it has not. In the latest episode of Mom, Violet returns, and she has a lot to say about Christy from when she was drinking.

S6E8 "Jell-O Shots and the Truth About Santa"
The episode begins with Christy's usual complaints about her mom, but when a classmate refers her to a podcast where someone complains about their mom, that someone turns out to be Violet. Christy can't believe that Violet would talk about how bad of a mother she was when she was drunk to everyone, and eventually calls Violet from Bonnie's phone. Christy's awkwardness while leaving a voicemail is funny, but it also really shows how Christy and Violet don't talk. After Violet responds by playing the voicemail on her podcast, Christy decides to go to Violet.

After some initial angst from Violet that comes off as over-the-top (such as when Violet takes offense to Christy asking about Luke, assuming she thinks she couldn't get this apartment on her own), the mother and daughter get serious. Talking face-to-face, Christy and Violet are really able to tell the other how they feel. Violet recognizes how Christy has changed, but reminds her, and especially us in the audience, as we've only ever heard about Christy's drinking days, what life was like when Christy drank.

There's an understanding between the two, but the show doesn't use this to take the expected route. Instead of having them reconcile and decide to work together to repair their relationship, Violet tells Christy that, right now, she doesn't want them to have a relationship. In doing this, the show recognizes how complicated this relationship is, and it also gives good reason for the fact that Violet is going to continue to not be on the show. But the moment in the hall between Christy and Bonnie after this is a reminder that this is just for now, and gives the show the chance to re-introduce Violet at some point down the line (probably a couple of years from now, I would guess).

Compared against this nuance and ending that certainly isn't typical, the subplot about Adam and his bar feels out of place. Mom frequently does episodes with just one story, and this would be an episode where it would make sense to do that. Instead, we also get a forgettable story where Adam worries about how his bar will perform once it is opened. It's not that this story is that bad, it just lacks substance, and feels generic. Most of all, it just seems unnecessary.

The main story of this episode felt grounded and overdue. Mom can be a really funny show, but the part of this episode that worked best was when they didn't go for any jokes. Sadly, the subplot didn't even come close to the quality of the main one. Still, this was a strong episode.

Score: 9/10

What did you think of "Jell-O Shots and the Truth About Santa"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

The Good Place is a show that has constantly been changing things up as it goes, especially in this third season. The season started out with Michael pushing the humans together so that they would become better, then it changed to the humans learning about what happened and deciding to help others get into the good place, and the end of last week's episode hinted at change coming. This week's episode sees the group try to come up with a good-person blueprint while a threat approaches.

S3E9 "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By"
The Good Place has been compared to Lost since early on, as it dumped strangers together in an unfamiliar territory, made game-changing twists, and early episodes had flashbacks to the characters' lives before. I've often talked about the show as Lost meets Parks and Recreation, for the reasons above and the comedy style. The episode begins in a way that most Lost viewers likely noted as inspired by the earlier series, with it showing us a character we don't know in a place we don't know living everyday life before we are shown the connection to the story we are following. In this case, Doug Forcett is going about his Canadian life until Michael and Janet knock on his door, pretending to be reporters.

Michael and Janet intend to observe how Doug lives his life, and there is some really good comedy here about Michael's excitement upon meeting Doug. However, the two discover how horribly Doug forces himself to live, as he does everything to help others and doesn't think about himself at all. Additional sadness hangs over all of this, as Doug has said that he is doing it all to end up in the good place, and we know that this motivation would actually cause him to get sent to the bad place.

While Michael and Janet are off visiting Doug, Eleanor contemplates whether or not she should tell Chidi about how they fell in love. Tahani gives some surprisingly good advice on the matter, prompting Eleanor to decide she should tell him. On a more comedic side, Chidi defeats Jason in a game of Jason's own making, because really all that needs to be done to defeat Jason in this game is to outsmart him. Before Eleanor is able to talk to Chidi, the demons arrive. Janet using her immense knowledge to fight off all of the demons is entertaining, but the brawl goes on much too long, leaving the ending to be rushed, as a bunch of information is dropped all at once. About 5 seconds before the episode ends, Janet deduces that the group needs to go to her void, and that means that they will die.

While this episode had its comedic moments, presented interesting philosophical problems, and moved the plot along, its pacing felt very off. Much of the episode was spent with Michael and Janet at Doug's, where they end up coming to a conclusion that was evident early on, and during this, the others literally wasted time. Then, a more time than necessary was spent on the fight, and very little was spent on what will matter going forward. I think that The Good Place is an excellent show, so even though this episode is quite weak by the show's standards, it is still a good episode.

Score: 7.5/10

What did you think of "Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By"? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Welcome to the CW Renew/Cancel Watch, and with nothing else to predict for Thanksgiving, one show gets an upgrade.

Show

Prediction

Charmed

Certain Renewal

Dynasty

Certain Renewal

Riverdale

Certain Renewal

Supergirl

Certain Renewal

Supernatural

Certain Renewal

The Flash

Certain Renewal

Arrow

Likely Renewal

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

Likely Renewal

Black Lightning

Leans Renewal

Legacies

Leans Renewal

All American

Leans Renewal

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Final Season

iZombie

Final Season

Jane the Virgin

Final Season

All American: In a way, the show stayed steady this week despite declining in viewership. This is enough for an upgrade to "leans renewal" for the time being. For people still predicting cancelation for it by stating that it is lower rated in delayed viewing and streaming than both Charmed and Legacies, let me remind you of one simple observation: the CW has not canceled a show that it gave a partial backorder for since it renewed Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and iZombie during the 2015-16 season. If the CW did not have faith in the show whatsoever, then it wouldn't be getting any more episodes. Any backorder, partial or full, is a positive for any CW show with a fighting chance for renewal. And it has been scoring around the CW median for the second week in a row, as a rounded 0.3 A18-49 rating has been the rating for all the CW Sunday-Thursday 9pm shows. So, the line between renewal and cancelation has not been clear cut. Thanks, CW ratings collapse!

What do you think of this week's predictions? Let me know in the comments below!

As with the previous two Thanksgiving episodes, this one continues to explore Jimmy's relationship with his older brother, Billy (Rob Corddry) ... and chart the decline of Billy's personal life: In s.1, he was introduced as a successful dentist running his own practice, as well as a married man with a catchphrase-spouting teenage son and a baby on the way, but he was revealed to be broke due to gambling losses; by his return in s.2, he had bought a new car as a trial-separation gift to himself after his weepy wife had left him and taken the kids; and now he's dating a girl probably young enough to be his daughter, reluctantly going vegan, and taking heart medication.

One of Billy's pills is inadvertently given to JJ by Kenneth (who sees a prescription bottle out and automatically assumes it's JJ's medicine). After last week's ep featuring Jimmy's privileged pal Dane and a Goodfellas homage, here is yet another "M-A-- May-Jay" callback of sorts -- the DiMeos having "juice" (favored treatment) at the hospital where JJ is a frequent patient: Since JJ will have to be kept overnight for observation, and Maya is determined to make the best of her son's favorite holiday having gone awry, she takes advantage of her family's hospital privilege by raiding the supplies for table settings and decorations, and she aims to secure the best possible room -- the VIP "celebrity" suite -- for him.

Also eyeing that room is Melanie Hertzal (Roseanne and Scrubs alum Sarah Chalke), introduced in the s.2 Christmas ep as a fellow special-needs mom who had cheated Maya over a decade ago (when their sons were vying for a single opening at an elite school). Her son, Logan (Cole Massie), who is recovering from a tonsillectomy, happens to be JJ's rival from summer camp (introduced in the s.2 Thanksgiving ep); alas, the root of the boys' feud remains a mystery, not unlike "the Noodle Incident" from Calvin & Hobbes. Maya and Melanie were great putting aside their differences and working together in s2e16 "One A-N-- Angry M-- Maya" (prolonging their jury-duty mini-vacation), and here they're equally fun carrying out an elaborate plan to rid the celebrity suite of its current occupant, an attention-seeking hypochondriac. (Their special-needs parent juice may be overridden by "famous" juice in this instance * ; but the moms, in their scheme, still seem to get away with an awful lot of crap that the hospital likely wouldn't tolerate coming from most other families.)

However, when it comes to choosing whose son ultimately gets the room, neither mom has a coin to flip, so Melanie suggests sharing it; and when Maya goes to tell JJ, he insists she just take the room, as Logan and his mother cannot be trusted. (Indeed, Melanie eventually admits she would've done the same thing.) I was disappointed that Maya would stoop so low, as she had made it a point that (unlike Melanie) her doing anything for her son would never extend to "screwing over" other special-needs parents; fortunately, she ends up being the one to call a truce after Melanie tries to drive her, JJ and Dylan out by somehow messing with the air-conditioning, alarm and lights.

Meanwhile, Kenneth -- wanting to make up for what he did to JJ -- agrees to keep an eye on Billy. Jimmy's newfound resolve to try to find the good in his brother (after expecting and finding only the worst for so long) is soon tested when he stumbles upon Billy and Kenneth having way too much fun playing with novocaine; after Jimmy wants to join in and Billy turns him down, Jimmy admits to Kenneth that he misses the fun he and his brother used to have growing up. Later, when Kenneth tries to help the brothers get along better, Jimmy and Billy rediscover their old magic by poking fun at the aide's attempt to encourage deeper, more mature bonding -- Billy may have enjoyed playing with Kenneth like a new toy, but he and Jimmy have a lifetime of in-jokes to forever bind them. (Of course, Kenneth gets his revenge by mocking a heart-to-heart talk Jimmy has with Ray.)

As for Ray, in the s.2 finale he resolved to work on himself before pursuing ex-girlfriend Taylor (Melanie's daughter) again, as she seemed open to giving him another chance after her mom had supposedly promised his mom to put in a good word for him; but apparently all it takes is growing his first chest hair to boost his confidence. At the hospital, after Logan informs him that his sister's on a ski trip with her boyfriend, Ray is plunged into deep despair; he sweetly bonds with a pregnant girl named Mary (Azura Skye) who welcomes his "boring" yet calming tale of woe, and witnessing the birth of her son gives him renewed hope. Before long, though, that sweetness is undercut by Mary getting creeped out at Ray's method of calming her baby (lying down and holding him to his shirtless chest), as well as the closing tag in which she finds him saying goodbye to the wrong baby; beyond even Ray's usual awkwardness, I found this maybe just a couple steps too far into cringe-y.

(* Indeed, as the DiMeos, Kenneth, Billy, Melanie and Logan enjoy Thanksgiving dinner together in the VIP suite, it's revealed that "they need to be out in five minutes -- James Van Der Beek sprained his toe.")

Fun Fact: Longtime friends Corddry and John Ross Bowie (Jimmy) came up through Upright Citizens Brigade NY and LA together in the late '90s-early '00s, and had their own improv sketch troupe (with Brian Huskey and Seth Morris) called "Naked Babies."

In Three Weeks: "F-O-- FOLLOW T-H-R-- THROUGH" (airing Dec. 7).

Grade: 7.5/10. Lots of funny stuff -- I especially enjoyed Kenneth getting involved in Jimmy and Billy's relationship, and Maya and Melanie's scheme to get the celebrity patient out of the celebrity suite -- but very disappointing regression for Maya, and Ray's otherwise sweet plot turned out a bit over-the-top awkward for me.

In a surprising turn of events, one of the last shows to recieve a renewal for this season is one of the first shows renewed for next season. Marvel's Agents of SHIELD will be joining Will & Grace as the second renewal of the 2018-19 season, with a pickup for an additional 13 episode season for the 2019-20 season. Season six is expected to launch in the tail-end of the 2018-19 season, which makes this (very) early pickup even more unexpected.

What do you think of this news? Will you be tuning in for the seventh season? Let us know in the comments below!